Cook also gave me a good basket full of cooked provisions;
so I set out with Thomas very well provided for at least a week's siege.
I found Mrs. Blake still at the Larkums. She had been in the mean time
very busy getting them made comfortable; and while so doing had taken
minute stock of their ways and means. "I had no idea they was so bad
off," she assured me in whispered consultation. "There was the barrel of
flour she got with the money you give her, and not another airthly thing
in the house to eat but some salt and about a peck of potatoes."
"Did Mr. Bowen know this morning there was so little?"
"Sartinly; but I believe he'd starve afore he'd let on; he kinder looks
to the Lord for his pervisions, and he thinks it's a poor sort of faith
to ask human beings. I think he's most too good for such a forgetting
world as this is."
"The Lord has provided abundantly to-day, Mrs. Blake."
"I won't allow but somebody has. Maybe the Lord put it in your heart, I
can't say for sartin. It's a curious mixed up world, and we don't know
where men leaves off and the Lord begins; but that blind man is a
Christian, and if there is such a thing as religion he's got it and no
mistake."
As I looked around at the changed appearance of everything about me I
concluded Mrs. Blake did the work of the Christian, even if she made no
profession. The house had been scrubbed, the stove nicely polished, and
the children's faces shone with the combined effects of soap and water
and the good cheer that was being provided.
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